The Wretched of The Earth

  If man is judged by his acts, then I would say that the most urgent thing today for the African intellectual is the building of his nation. If this act is true, i.e., if it expresses the manifest will of the people, if it reflects the restlessness of the African peoples, then it will necessarily lead to the discovery and advancement of universalizing values. Far then from distancing it from other nations, it is the national liberation that puts the nation on the stage of history. It is at the heart of national consciousness that international consciousness establishes itself and thrives. And this dual emergence, in fact, is the unique focus of all culture.

  Paper presented at the Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists, Rome, 1959.

  Colonial War

  and Mental Disorders

  But the war goes on. And for many years to come we shall be bandaging the countless and sometimes indelible wounds inflicted on our people by the colonialist onslaught.

  Imperialism, which today is waging war against a genuine struggle for human liberation, sows seeds of decay here and there that must be mercilessly rooted out from our land and from our minds.

  We shall deal here with the problem of mental disorders born out of the national war of liberation waged by the Algerian people.

  Perhaps the reader will find these notes on psychiatry out of place or untimely in a book like this. There is absolutely nothing we can do about that.

  We had no control over the fact that the psychiatric phenomena, the mental and behavioral disorders emerging from this war, have loomed so large among the perpetrators of “pacification” and the “pacified” population. The truth is that colonization, in its very essence, already appeared to be a great purveyor of psychiatric hospitals. Since 1954 we have drawn the attention of French and international psychiatrists in scientific works to the difficulty of “curing” a colonized subject correctly, in other words making him thoroughly fit into a social environment of the colonial type.

  Because it is a systematized negation of the other, a frenzied determination to deny the other any attribute of humanity, colonialism forces the colonized to constantly ask the question: “Who am I in reality?”

  The defensive positions born of this violent confrontation between the colonized and the colonial constitute a structure which then reveals the colonized personality. In order to understand this “sensibility” we need only to study and appreciate the scope and depth of the wounds inflicted on the colonized during a single day under a colonial regime. We must remember in any case that a colonized people is not just a dominated people. Under the German occupation the French remained human beings. Under the French occupation the Germans remained human beings. In Algeria there is not simply domination but the decision, literally, to occupy nothing else but a territory. The Algerians, the women dressed in haiks, the palm groves, and the camels form a landscape, the natural backdrop for the French presence.

  A hostile, ungovernable, and fundamentally rebellious Nature is in fact synonymous in the colonies with the bush, the mosquitoes, the natives, and disease. Colonization has succeeded once this untamed Nature has been brought under control. Cutting railroads through the bush, draining swamps, and ignoring the political and economic existence of the native population are in fact one and the same thing.

  When colonization remains unchallenged by armed resistance, when the sum of harmful stimulants exceeds a certain threshold, the colonized’s defenses collapse, and many of them end up in psychiatric institutions. In the calm of this period of triumphant colonization, a constant and considerable stream of mental symptoms are direct sequels of this oppression.

  Today the all-out national war of liberation waged by the Algerian people for seven years has become a breeding ground for mental disorders.22 We include here cases of Algerian and French patients under our care which we think particularly meaningful. We need hardly add that our approach here is not that of a scientific work, and we have avoided any semiological, nosological, or therapeutic discussion. The few technical terms used here are solely meant as points of reference. We must, however, insist on two points:

  As a general rule, clinical psychiatry classifies the various disorders presented by our patients under the heading “psychotic reaction.” In doing so, priority is given to the situation that triggered the disorder, although here and there mention is made of the role played by the subject’s psychological, affective, and biological history, and that of his milieu. We believe that in the cases presented here the triggering factor is principally the bloody, pitiless atmosphere, the generalization of inhuman practices, of people’s lasting impression that they are witnessing a veritable apocalypse.

  Case no. 2 of Series A is a typical psychotic reaction, but case nos. 1, 2, 4, and 5 of Series B suppose a much vaguer causality, although we cannot really point to a particular triggering situation. Here it is the war, this colonial war that very often takes on the aspect of a genuine genocide, this war which radically disrupts and shatters the world, which is in fact the triggering situation. These are brief psychotic disorders, if we want to use the official term, but putting particular emphasis on war in general and the specific circumstances of a colonial war. After the two major world wars there was a host of publications on the mental pathology of soldiers engaged in action as well as the civilian refugees and bombing victims. The novel physiognomy of some of the case histories mentioned here provides confirmation, if we still needed it, that this colonial war is a new phenomenon even in the pathology it produces.

  Another well-established notion that deserves in our opinion to be reevaluated is that these psychotic reactions are relatively benign. Anniversary reactions, i.e., cases where the entire personality has been definitively dislocated, have of course been described, but always as exceptional cases. We believe on the contrary that the pathological processes tend as a rule to be frequently malignant. These disorders last for months, wage a massive attack on the ego, and almost invariably leave behind a vulnerability virtually visible to the naked eye. In all evidence the future of these patients is compromised. The following example will illustrate our standpoint.

  In a certain African country, independent for some years now, we have had the opportunity of treating a patriot and former resistance fighter. The man, in his thirties, would come and ask us for advice and help, since he was afflicted with insomnia together with anxiety attacks and obsession with suicide around a certain date in the year. The critical date corresponded to the day he had been ordered to place a bomb somewhere. Ten people had perished during the attack.23

  This militant, who never for a moment had thought of recanting, fully realized the price he had had to pay in his person for national independence. Such borderline cases pose the question of responsibility in the context of the revolution.

  The observations quoted here cover the period 1954 to 1959. Certain patients were examined in Algeria either in hospitals or private practice. The others were treated in the National Liberation Army’s medical facilities.

  SERIES A

  Five cases have been collected here, all involving Algerians or Europeans who had clearly defined symptoms of severe reactive disorders.

  Case No. 1—Impotence in an Algerian following the rape of

  his wife

  B— — is a twenty-six-year-old man. He has been referred to us by the Medical Services of the National Liberation Front for persistent migraines and insomnia. A former taxi driver, he has been a militant in the nationalist parties since the age of eighteen. In 1955 he became a member of an FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale) unit. On several occasions he used his taxi to carry propaganda leaflets and political leaders. Confronted with a widening crackdown, the FLN decided to wage war in the urban centers; B— — was then assigned to driving commandos close to the points of attack, and fairly often having to wait for them.

  One day, however, right in the middle of the European sector, following a fairly extensive commando raid, the sector was sealed off, forcing him to abandon his taxi an
d compelling the commando unit to break up and disperse. B- - , who managed to escape the enemy’s surveillance, took refuge at a friend’s house, and a few days later, on orders from his superiors, went underground to join the nearest resistance unit without evergoing home.

  For several months he went without news of his wife and his twenty-month-old daughter. He did learn, however, that the police had been looking for him for weeks in the city. After two years in the resistance movement he received a message from his wife asking him to forget her. She had brought shame on herself. He must no longer think of coming back to live with her. Extremely worried, he requested permission from his commander to make a secret trip back home. It was refused. However, steps were taken for a member of the FLN to contact B——’s wife and parents.

  Two weeks later a detailed report reached the commander of B——’s unit.

  Soon after his abandoned taxi had been discovered (with two machine gun magazines inside) a group of French soldiers and policemen had gone to his home. Finding him absent, they took away his wife and kept her for over a week.

  She was interrogated about the company her husband kept and slapped fairly violently for two days. On the third day a French soldier—she was unable to say whether he was an officer-ordered the others out and raped her. Shortly afterward a second soldier, this time in the presence of the others, raped her, telling her: “If you ever see that bastard your husband again, don’t you forget to tell him what we did to you.” She remained another week without undergoing further interrogation. She was then escorted home. When she told her story to her mother, the latter convinced her to tell B— — everything. So as soon as her husband got in touch with her again, she confessed her disgrace.

  Once the initial shock was over, B- - soon recovered by devoting every minute of his life to the cause. For several months he took reports from Algerian women who had been tortured or raped; he had the opportunity of meeting with the husbands of abused women and his personal misfortune, his dignity as an injured husband took second place.

  In 1958 he was assigned to a mission abroad. Just before rejoining his unit an unusual distraction and insomnia worried his comrades and his superiors. His departure was delayed and a medical examination ordered. This was when he was referred to us. Our first impression was good. A lively face, a bit too lively perhaps. His smile was slightly forced, his exuberance superficial: “I’m okay . . . I’m okay. I feel better now. Give me a fortifier, some vitamins, and let me go back.” He was obviously anxious deep down. He was immediately hospitalized.

  On the second day the smoke screen of optimism vanished and we had on our hands a bedridden anorexic suffering from melancholic depression. He avoided any political discussion and manifested a marked disinterest for anything concerning the national struggle. He avoided listening to news about the war of liberation. Identifying his problems was extremely laborious, but after several days we managed to reconstruct his story:

  During his stay abroad he had tried to have sexual intercourse but failed. Thinking it was merely fatigue, normal after forced marches and periods of malnutrition, he tried again two weeks later and failed again. Spoke to a comrade about it who advised him to take vitamin B12. Took it in tablet form. New attempt, new failure. Furthermore, a few moments before the act he had an irresistible impulse to tear up a photo of his little girl. Such a symbolic connection could raise the possibility of unconscious incestuous drives. However, several conversations and a dream in which the patient witnessed the rapid putrefying of a kitten giving off a nauseating smell, led us in a completely new direction.

  “This girl,” he told us one day, referring to his daughter, “has something rotten inside her.” From that moment on his insomnia became extremely troubling, and despite a fairly large dose of neuroleptics, he developed a state of nervous anxiety that was particularly alarming. He then spoke to us for the first time about his wife and said laughingly: “She got a bit of French meat.” It was then we were able to reconstruct the whole story. The fabric of events became clear. He told us that every time he tried to have sexual intercourse, he thought of his wife. What he confided to us seemed to be of fundamental interest.

  “I married this girl whereas I was in love with my cousin. But the cousin’s parents had arranged to marry their daughter to someone else. So I accepted the first girl my parents offered me. She was nice, but I didn’t love her. I kept telling myself: you’re young . . . wait a bit, and when you’ve found the right girl, you’ll divorce and make a happy marriage. So I wasn’t very attached to my wife. With the war, we moved even further apart. In the end, I used to come and eat my meals and go to bed with hardly a word between us.

  “When I learned during my time with the freedom fighters that she had been raped by some French soldiers I first of all felt angry with the bastards. Then I said, ‘Oh, it’s nothing serious; she wasn’t killed. She can start her life over again.’ And then several weeks later it dawned on me that she had been raped because they had been looking for me. In fact she had been raped to punish her for keeping quiet. She could have easily given them at least one militant’s name, which would have enabled them to discover and eliminate the network, and perhaps even have me arrested. It was not therefore a simple rape for want of anything better to do or out of sadism, as I had often seen in the douars; it was the rape of a tenacious woman who was prepared to accept anything rather than give up her husband. And that husband was me. That woman had saved my life and had protected the network. It was my fault she had been dishonored. Yet she didn’t say: ‘This is what I endured for you.’ On the contrary, she said: ‘Forget me, start a new life, I have been disgraced.’

  “It was then that I made up my mind to take her back after the war; I have to tell you I’ve seen peasants dry the tears of their wives who had been raped under their very eyes. That shook me up quite a bit and I have to confess that at first I couldn’t understand their attitude. But we had to intervene increasingly in such circumstances to explain things to the civilians and I’ve seen civilians volunteer to marry a young girl who had been raped and made pregnant by French soldiers. All that made me think again about my wife.

  “I’ve made up my mind to take her back, but I still don’t know how I’ll react when I see her. And when I look at the picture of my daughter I often think she was dishonored as well. As if everything that had to do with my wife was rotten. If they had tortured her, if they had broken all her teeth or an arm, I wouldn’t have minded so much. But that thing, how can you ever get over it? And did she have to tell me about it?”

  He then asked me whether his “sexual failing” in my opinion was caused by his worrying.

  Answer: “It’s quite likely.”

  He then sat up in bed.

  “What would you do if it happened to you?”

  “I don’t know ...”

  “Would you take your wife back?”

  “I think I would . . .”

  “Ah, you see . . . you’re not quite sure.”

  He put his head in his hands and after a few moments left the room.

  From that day on, he gradually accepted to listen to political discussions while his migraines and anorexia lessened considerably.

  After two weeks he rejoined his unit telling me: “On independence, I’ll take my wife back. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll come and see you again in Algiers.”

  Case No. 2—Random homicidal impulses in a survivor of a massacre

  S— —, thirty-seven years old, a fellah. Lives in a douar in the region of Constantine. Has never been involved in politics. Since the beginning of the war his region has been the scene of violent battles between the Algerian forces and the French army. S— —therefore has had occasion to see the dead and the wounded. But he continued to keep his distance. Like the general population, the peasants from his village had occasionally come to the aid of Algerian fighters as they passed through. But one day in early 1958 a deadly ambush occurred not far from the douar. The enemy forces went into
action and surrounded the village where there was not a single soldier. All the inhabitants were rounded up and interrogated. Everyone kept silent. A few hours later a French officer arrived by helicopter and declared: ‘There’s too much fuss over this douar; destroy it!’ The soldiers began to set fire to the houses while the women who were trying to collect a few clothes or save some provisions were driven back with rifle butts. Some of the peasants took advantage of the confusion to escape. The officer gave orders to round up the remaining men and had them brought to a neighboring wadi where the massacre began. Twenty-nine men were killed at point-blank range. S— — was wounded by two bullets that passed through his right thigh and left arm respectively, the latter wound causing a fractured humerus.

  S— —fainted and regained consciousness in the midst of a group of ALN (Armée de Liberation Nationale) soldiers. He was treated by their medical personnel and evacuated once he was able to walk. En route his increasingly abnormal behavior was a constant source of concern for the escort. He demanded a gun, although he was a helpless civilian, and refused to walk in front of anybody. He refused to have anyone behind him. One night he grabbed one of the soldier’s guns and clumsily fired on the sleeping soldiers. He was disarmed by force. From then on his hands were tied and that is how he arrived at the Center.

  He began by telling us he was not dead and he had played a trick on the others. Gradually we managed to reconstruct the story of his failed assassination attempt. S- - is not anxious, but overexcited with violent mood swings and shouting. He did not break anything, but wore everyone out by his constant chatter and the Service was on permanent alert because of his declared intention to ‘kill everybody.’ During his hospitalization he would attack roughly eight patients, with makeshift weapons. The nurses and doctors were not spared either. We even wondered whether we were not facing one of those latent forms of epilepsy characterized by a general aggressiveness that was almost constantly on edge.